SYLLABUS and COURSE OUTLINE 0SCI 590

Dental Anthropology, Human Evolution, and Hominid
Evolution

Summer 2001

Dental Anthropology, Human Variation, and Hominid Evolution is a
one credit hour course offered by Oral Sciences at UIC.

Location and Time: Room 138 in the Orthodontic Department
at the south end of the UIC College of Dentistry first floor, 801
South Paulina, Chicago. Class begins promptly at 1:00 PM and ends
promptly at 2:30 PM each Thursday for twelve consecutive weeks
beginning May 17th and concluding with the final session on August
2nd.

Course Objectives: An overview of physical anthropology and
evolution; human adaptation, variation, growth, and maturation,
morphology, organization, phylogeny, and development of the hominid
dentition.

Special Topics:

Dental Anthropology: Basic dental anatomy for the non-dentist;
variation in size and shape of teeth; sequence and timing of
dental growth; age determination; tooth wear; dental cultural
mutilation; mechanisms of tooth eruption; the life history of
teeth.

Hominid Evolution: science and religion; the first hominids;
evolution of the genus Homo; the origin of modern humans; the
coevolution of human health and disease.

Textbook and Instructional Material: Hillson, S. Dental
Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. A binder
and text written by the instructor for this course will be provided
to you each week.

Instructor: Clarke Johnson DDS, PhD, Northwestern and the
University of Chicago. Appointments: Assistant Professor UIC College
of Dentistry Departments of Oral Biology and Orthodontics; Visiting
Lecturer in Anthropology Indiana University Northwest Sociology and
Anthropology Department. You may call me in the evening after 6:00 PM
at (815) 939-4242; leave a message after the fourth ring if there is
no answer. To find me mat UIC, call the Oral Biology secretary, room
452 at (312) 996-7732. My own office is room 461C. At IUN, my
telephone is (219) 981-5601. There is voicemail. In the event of
illness or personal crisis, please keep in touch so we can assist you
with coursework. My email at UIC is:

CLJ@uic.edu

Format: The class sessions will be lecture and discussion.
Topics discussed will be rigorously organized and notes are
encouraged. Due to the wide scope of material to be covered, the
instructor has written much of what is covered.

Sign-in: You are asked to 'sign in' at each class period.
Attendance each week is expected of you.

Examinations: There will be a short midterm examination and
a comprehensive final examination. A study guide will be provided for
each. The dates are listed in the Class Schedule elsewhere in the
syllabus.

Weekly Written Assignments: There will be nine homework
assignments. Most are 'hands-on' in nature and creativity is
encouraged. Each will have concise written instructions.

Independent Study Project: This is a paper, approximately
eight pages in length, including a literature review, and a
bibliography. More details and a list of suggested topics is provided
elsewhere in this syllabus. syl-1999

OSCI 590 Website: This course is accessible 'on line' at
this URL

www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590

Final Grade Breakdown:

Midterm examination.............50 points

Weekly assignments..............20 points

Independent Study Component.....30 points

Final examination..............100 points

===

Course total.................200 points

Acknowledgement: This is a special 'thank you' to Carla
Evans, Orthodontic Department Chairman for providing the inspiration,
encouragement, ongoing advice, and financial support for this
course.

.....

Class Schedule for OSCI 590 Summer
2000

WEEK 1 May 17 EVOLUTION I

What is Anthropology? The subfields of anthropology; life on
earth; the history of evolutionary thought; the Great Chain of Being;
Linnaeus, other pioneers.

*Introduction to dental anthropology.

Readings: Hillson Ch 1, 2 pp 1-67 Handouts issued.

****Do homework #1, due next week.

**Term paper instructions and topics issued.

WEEK 2 May 24 EVOLUTION II

Prologue to Darwin; The Beagle; Darwin and Wallace; the
development of evolutionary thought; the logical consequence in
theory; the evidence for evolution. *History and organization of
teeth; jaws and teeth. Demonstration with museum specimens, with an
emphasis on comparative anatomy of the vertebrates.

Anthropometry; some instruments used in anthropometry; what
anthropologists measure; population variation and peoples of the
world. *Occlusion and Malocclusion; teeth and prehistory.

Readings: Hillson Ch 4 pp 106-117. Handouts issued.

****Homework #6 due next week.

**Midterm examinations returned today.

WEEK 8 July 05 HUMAN GROWTH I

The human growth curve: velocity and distance/longitudinal and
cross-sectional data; growth at adolescence. *Sequence and timing of
dental growth; missing teeth and the Field Theory.

Readings: Hillson Ch 8 pp 198-206. Handouts issued.

****Homework #7 due next week.

**Your term paper is due in two weeks.

WEEK 9 July 12 HUMAN GROWTH II

Heredity and environment in controlling growth; secular
(generational) trends; sociology and health; intellectual growth;
physique in its relation to function, disease and behavior;
senescence; how anthropologists determine the age of skeletal
remains. *Theories of tooth eruption; thick and thin enamel.

Readings: Hillson Ch 9, 10 pp 207-230. Handouts issued.

****Abstract of your term paper (#8) due next week.

**Your term paper is due next week.

WEEK 10 July 19 HUMAN ADAPTABILITY I

Human ecology, adaptibility and plasticity of the human genome;
adaptation to heat, cold, and high altitude. *Nonmetric variation in
tooth form.

Readings: Hillson Ch 11 pp 231-253. Handouts issued.

****Homework #9 due next week.

**Your term paper is due today.

**Study guide for the final exam issued today. The final exam is
in two weeks.

(If a 'take home' final is issued week 11, this session will be
ommitted.)

- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
-

INDEPENDENT STUDY PROJECT

TERM PAPER SUGGESTIONS: The very term 'term paper' turns
many students off. It brings back memories of all night marathons to
produce a document at the last minute. Writing them was much worse in
the era before computer word processing, the ready availability of
photocopied articles, and cumbersome library search mechanisms all
done with paper. Often a critically important library document was
lost, stolen, or checked out to someone else.

The Internet and the search mechanisms at the library offer modes
of inquiry not even dreamed of when I started graduate school in
1966.

Why have this requirement, or this course at all? Our intent is to
expose you to dental literature outside the usual clinical sciences
and to a body of knowledge outside of clinical dentistry that impacts
on what you do. In brief, we hope to broaden your horizon and
introduce some new ideas to you.

Many disciplines outside of dentistry study teeth. Teeth are
enduring in the fossil record, serve nicely as genetic markers in
phylogeny, and offer important clues about lifeways in the past.

I did a rhesus monkey project in grad school. They bit, scratched,
smelled, and about everything that could go wrong with our reasearch
study did go wrong. One animal died prematurely. Fellow student Dan
Driscoll and I were able to salvage enough data to do our papers,
survive oral examination, and graduate. We submitted our work for the
Milo Hellman award in 1969 and came in third.

My best memories of that project was assembling the literature
review. It was a wonderful learning experience. It is with that
experience that I ask this of you: select a topic, dig out
appropriate references, and put it together in your own words. Plan
to do seven double spaced pages and a page of bibliography in proper
academic style.

Late in the semester, an abstract will be requested of you. These
will be duplicated and shared with you classmates.

A copy of your paper will be retained by the department and will
be placed on file for future reference. Suggestion: be original and
do a good job with your paper.